The NAU History Department offers a Master of Arts degree in History and a Doctor of Philosophy degree in History. Normally, a student with an appropriate degree in a related discipline and a 3.0 grade point average is eligible to apply for admission to these three programs.
The M.A. programs in History at Northern Arizona University are designed to prepare students to pursue a variety of academic, career, and personal interests. These may include preparation for doctoral or other post-graduate degrees, teaching, and public service. The programs stress a close professor-student relationship. While maintaining a strength in the American West, the programs encourage students to approach the study of history in its global context, drawing on comparative perspectives. For the Master of Arts in History there is both a thesis and non-thesis (extended coursework plan) option. Both options require at least 30 credit hours to receive the M.A. degree.
The Ph.D. program in History at Northern Arizona University is designed to prepare students to pursue a variety of academic and career interests, including college-level teaching, research, secondary education teaching, and public service. The program is small and individualized; it may be oriented to the needs of those who intend to focus on teaching, research, and publication within a field of specialization; or more broadly to prepare for general classroom instruction, career advancement, or personal enrichment. In every case it encourages students to approach the subject matter from broad multidisciplinary and comparative perspectives, while at the same time engaging in in-depth and innovative research of a particular historical subject, as embodied in the student’s doctoral dissertation work. Students choose courses from geographical and thematic areas in history, and from cognate disciplinary areas which address their career needs. In the last case, the courses selected may emphasize disciplines, such as anthropology or literature, which bring complementary methodological and theoretical perspectives to the study of a historical topic. The Ph.D. requires a minimum of 36 hours of coursework beyond the M.A. degree, in addition to the doctoral dissertation.